The Ukrainian government’s decision not to sign the ‘free trade agreement’ persistently promoted by the EU is portrayed by the western media as the spark that ignited an already volatile country.

Accordingly, the protesters are righteously fighting against a corrupt government, who are seen as the spell-bound puppets of the Putin administration, or so the narrative goes. The near-Manichean view that is projected into public consciousness by the majority (there are exceptions) of the mainstream media has a depressingly familiar binary rhetoric: Putin and Russia are bad; the EU are the good guys. Putin is once again the bogeyman of the west. Whilst it is fairly evident that Putin as an individual is no Angel Gabriel, to say the least, it should not detract from the fact that in this particular situation the Russian government is not the aggressor and has had its geo-strategic interests seriously challenged. The EU’s obtrusive ultimatum is a provocation that could spark further conflict in an already unstable region. Yet rigorous, critical debate concerning the content and intentions of the EU agreements is notably absent in western discourse. The view of events that is dished out by the media bares only a fragile resemblance to the reality.

The EU ultimatum, given under the ostensibly innocuous rubric of a “free” trade agreement constitutes an act of geopolitical aggression and is both irresponsible and dangerous. The argument against the deal is that it simply doesn’t make economic sense for Ukraine. Critics of the deal fear the economy would implode without the heavily subsidised Russian gas it receives, and that Ukraine is currently too dependent on Russian markets to survive such a destabilising transition. Strangely enough though, the EU deal is lucrative for western capitalists, who would benefit well from exploiting the cheap Ukrainian labour and open access to industry and resources through such “free trade”.

Ukraine is a complex and intensely divided country, which is why a little nuance needs to be injected into western debate. Nobody can deny that there are many in western Ukraine who seriously desire EU integration, and who are decidedly pro-Europe. Yet there is also a strong pro-Russian camp in the East that is just as opposed to such integration, a point that often escapes some commentators. Yanukovych is the political product of a corrupt oligarchical system, and the government’s responses to the protests have been predictably repressive. Yet double-standards are definitely at play when EU leaders fervently condemn the brutality of the Ukrainian police, but dismiss similar violence caused by EU austerity measures in Greece and Spain. In a dispiritingly ironic twist, the prescription of privatisation and deregulation the EU proposes for Ukraine are of the same neoliberal blend that actually caused the riots in Athens and Madrid.

I am not a Putin apologist, nor one of Yanukovych or any of the crony-capitalist oligarchs that enjoy unbridled power and privilege (ironically though, such oligarchs are the product of the same neo-liberal free-trade “shock therapy” that is promoted by the EU). Ukraine is stuck between the EU and an exploitative pro-Russian oligarchical system, with both sides exacerbating an already turbulent scenario. Both the EU and Russia have been ratcheting up the pressure on Ukraine for years, with public opinion on both sides (and sometimes even in Ukraine itself) appearing largely irrelevant, a problem that could be rectified with a more informative and impartial media, rather than the spineless and sensationalist manifestations we have today. The failure of the media to adequately address critical or alternative viewpoints with regard to such a complex and politicised series of events is hampering progress towards reaching a balanced solution.

Jethro Norman